In statements made in June 2025, at the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum, and later in July 2025 at a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Russian President Vladimir Putin laid out the conditions under which Russia would agree to end a conflict with Ukraine which had, at that time, entered its fourth year. Putin explicitly rejected any ceasefire agreement that wasn’t predicated on Ukraine’s “irreversible demilitarization” as a precondition.